You meet 'em wherever you go!

If you're reading this blog, chances are you know me ... and you probably know that after college, I spent two years traveling with Up With People. The first year I was a participant in the program, which included international travel and home stays, volunteer work and a Broadway-style musical performance. The second year, I worked as a North American Admissions Representative, and recited those words several thousand times in presentations and interviews!

The Up With People theme song begins like this:

"Up, Up With People!
You meet 'em wherever you go.
Up, Up With People!
They're the best kind of folks you know.
If more people were for people, all people everywhere
There'd be a lot less people to worry about, and a lot more people who care!"

So did you catch the second line? In UWP we joke that "you meet'em wherever you go" because with over 17,000 alumni (that was 10 years ago ... there are surely more than 20,000 now!) worldwide, you do run into them often!

I had what I thought was a pretty good example of this following a train trip across Germany in 2002, when I was headed to Prague to start my teaching job there. I'd reserved a seat on the train, and was seated next to an elderly man that turned out to be the grandfather of a girl I'd traveled with in my cast.

But then, last Wednesday, I got a new story ...

It was an ordinary day. In the afternoon, I headed to Ecolangues, one of the schools where I teach English to professional adults. Shortly after I arrived, Fabrice (the director) showed up with his little granddaughter ... he was babysitting for the day. I said hello, and went back to preparing for my student.

After my class, I headed out to the parking lot across the street. I noticed a man and a woman at a nearby car getting a baby in her car seat, but it didn't register until I backed out of my spot that the man was Fabrice. I put down the window to wish him a good evening, and he said he wanted to introduce me to his daughter, because she'd spent some time in America, when she traveled with a group called Up With People ... and had I heard of it?

I thought it was a pretty cool coincidence that his daughter had travelled with UWP, too, but that was nothing compared to the surprise I felt when I saw her turn around. It was Severine! The only French cast member of our group of 170 people! We couldn't believe it! We'd traveled together in the same cast 10 years ago, but hadn't had any contact since. I didn't remember that she lived in Angers, because the city didn't mean anything to me at the time. We weren't particularly friends during our year -- each of us with different circles of friends -- but that didn't minimize the happiness we felt to see each other again!

We chatted about the few cast members each of us still keeps in contact with, and about what we're up to these days, and promised to get together for a coffee someday. I don't know if and when we will, but we both have a great "you meet 'em wherever you go" story now!